End of split brand PPVs

A friend of mine is going to Backlash in May and just got an update that it will not be a Raw PPV, but feature both Raw and Smackdown. Seems like this may be the end of the split brand PPVs at the moment.

Making Cena a free agent while he's almost exclusively on Raw is another telltale sign.

Smackdown has been fucking DIRE these past few months but I still liked this version of the brand split as a whole. They did a lot to develop new acts and make the shows stand out at first. I don't think you get Braun, Elias, or Main Event Star AJ (as opposed to great wrestler AJ) without the split.

And for what it's worth, they made me into a regular Smackdown viewer for the first time in a decade. If Smackdown's current state is because they're biding time until something official happens, I guess I get it, but I'd much rather they focus on making it watchable again instead of pulling the plug on the experiment as a whole.

I've said it before the last time they did a split, and I'll say it now: There's little chance guys like Elias or the Revival get much of a shot on TV in a non brand split world since you'll have the top guys filling most of both shows. Hell, there's probably no chance you'd have two different 3 woman groups debut if everyone's on the same roster.

Plus what are they going to do about their touring groups? The Smackdown guys do their swings through Mondays so they're going to have to reshuffle their lineups there as well as changing TVs/PPVs.

No reason for double the belts either if it's going to be the same guys on every show, this seems like a pretty significant business change.

Yea the whole "OMG THIS MEANS THE BRAND SPLIT IS DEAD!" thing is a massive overreaction. During the last split the dual brand PPVs were around longer than split PPVs were,

If you want to be mad at someone, blame that fake member of the Armstrong family who had to have been dropped off at a fire station and taken home by Bullet Bob. He hasn't been able to come up with a good Smackdown PPV card on paper since after WrestleMania and frequently just repeated the same shit over and over. Raw PPVs have not been guilty of that except for maybe the tag team title matches. And even that was the result of teams getting injured (Jeff Hardy, both Revival members at different times)

Do we know for definite if this is the end of all brand split PPVs? Or just that show in May? I know previously when they have done a draft then a show can become dual brand because of the fall out and ending some story lines but will be interesting to see.

Personally - and I acknowledge that this is with Smackdown falling off a cliff these last few months - I like the brand split, as it allows more people to feature than would otherwise be the case. To me, the least interesting Smackdown has ever been was during the years when they combined the brands between 2011-2016 as nothing of consequence ever happened on it.

Personally - and I acknowledge that this is with Smackdown falling off a cliff these last few months - I like the brand split, as it allows more people to feature than would otherwise be the case. To me, the least interesting Smackdown has ever been was during the years when they combined the brands between 2011-2016 as nothing of consequence ever happened on it.

Worth remembering that the goal of the split was never to put Smackdown on equal footing with Raw. It was just that USA wanted WWE to improve Smackdown's ratings, and that was Vince's idea for how to do it. When they got Smackdown's ratings above where they used to be, USA was happy. And again, even if Road Dogg sucks at his job, don't blame middle management. The problems are at the top.

Worth remembering that the goal of the split was never to put Smackdown on equal footing with Raw. It was just that USA wanted WWE to improve Smackdown's ratings, and that was Vince's idea for how to do it. When they got Smackdown's ratings above where they used to be, USA was happy. And again, even if Road Dogg sucks at his job, don't blame middle management. The problems are at the top.

I think it's way too simple to just go "well it's all Vince's fault" especially when so many people went out of their way to try and avoid giving him any credit for Smackdown being really good last year. Let's not forget how many people kept trying to say "Vince only cares about Raw, HHH is in charge of Smackdown" last year when SD was clearly the better show.

Now Raw is by far the better show and it's almost at 2000 Raw vs Nitro levels of disparity between Raw & SD. The biggest common denominator between Raw's low point last year & SD now is that both shows were at their lowest points when they focused large amounts of time on Kevin Owens as the lead heel. It's not ALL his fault but it's certainly a factor.

I liked the single branded PPV, I don't watch the weekly TV regularly but I do watch the PPVs. I see alot of people say Smackdown isn't good but their PPVs are always pretty Decent. I see the flaws in the booking of Smackdown as opposed to Raw but If they traded a few guys it would be fine.

My biggest fear is that I would see the same guys every month, and would rarely see fresh talent getting the longer pay per view matches. My hope is that they would go back to 12 "pay per views" per year then, and would go back to having more non pay per view network "specials" that might showcase more undercard talent.

The biggest common denominator between Raw's low point last year & SD now is that both shows were at their lowest points when they focused large amounts of time on Kevin Owens as the lead heel. It's not ALL his fault but it's certainly a factor.